The window above the garage was my bedroom window. The one to the immediate right is the upstairs bathroom. We're looking west.

This is looking south. The kitchen window is visible just to the right of the garage. The tree in the foreground was about an inch in diameter when we lived there.

Looking kinda SE. On the ground floor there's the back sliding glass door into the living room and the window to the dining area. Upstairs is my sister's bedroom window on the southern side and the master on the north.

29 January 2013

The religious symbols of people with imaginary friends do not bother me nor terrify me.

I do not feel oppressed by a display of a manger scene in the courtyard.

I am not offended by crosses at military cemeteries. By the way, if you're not a veteran you don't get a vote about this because you didn't pay the entry fee to the club.

I am mildly bored by invocations at school ceremonies.

I am comfortable in my lack of faith and it can survive a great deal proselytizing.

I ask to be left alone and I will return that favor.

Campaigning against organized religion is not leaving them alone and I would have to expect some push back. Note that first word in "organized religion". It's best to not rile them up. Also remember what their organizations look like to us when you consider making a counter-organization. Do you think we DON'T look like dicks when we mob up and demand religion be suppressed?

You don't feel like you have anything to lose because a ban on atheist displays of religion in the public square is, what? And if I am banned from using the public square, why should I be required to pay for it? Willing to shoulder that burden? 85%+ of the nation claims a belief in God of some kind.

The tyranny of the minority is the worst kind. You should really look hard at your tactics, you sound just like the race baiters. Many of the same allies, so it's not surprising that the methods should be similar.

I like freedom. I like liberty.

I refuse to fight to strip those things from others on the off chance that I might have paid for a fiberglass baby or provided a month of outdoor storage for it in December.

At the time of ratification, the Bill of Rights; like the Constitution itself was a Federal matter.

Except for the things that were specifically prohibited in the Constitution from the states were free to do what they would.

It's a damn short list.

Under the original Constitution and Bill of Rights an individual state could ban all but their pet religion, forbid the owning of guns, quarter the state militia in their citizen's homes et cetera.

It was courts constantly finding that concerning blacks which led to the passage of the 14th amendment.

Nominally the 14th applies the restrictions of the Bill of Rights to the states.

Now the individual states may not declare state religions, ban guns and quarter troops.

Like other massive changes to government recently, the 14th was passed in a cursed hurry.

That there could be a ruling such as Slaughterhouse says a lot about how ambiguous the text of it is.

That said.

There's another problem creeping in the background because of the 14th's application of the 1st.

Godless Atheists. (heh)

Or rather, militant atheists. Fucking fanatics as a matter of fact.

All that matters to them is to be free of seeing any expression of religion and they will damn sure enlist the government to spare their delicate sensibilities. So much so they are definitely dictating THEIR beliefs onto the religious freedoms of others. And no matter how tangentially the discussion brushes this topic, they have something to say with all the bitter and bile of a Klansman.

Haters are like that.

I sometimes wonder if an atheists lack of faith is so tenuous that they are worried they will become believers should they be exposed enough.

I've yet to hear a decent answer to this: What is the difference between the court ordered elimination of all religious display and state mandated atheism?

26 January 2013

Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming is at hand.The Second Coming! Hardly are those words outWhen a vast image out of Spiritus MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desertA shape with lion body and the head of a man,A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,Is moving its slow thighs, while all about itReel shadows of the indignant desert birds.The darkness drops again; but now I knowThat twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

One of the reasons the right loses is we have a couple of issues that aren't related that are all "ours".

Abortion, Guns and Homosexuals.

Two of these things are religious issues and thus shouldn't be government issues because of the 1st Amendment.

Remember that one? It's right before the one we've memorized. Yeah...

What happens far too often when the gun people finally gang together and vote to preserve gun rights the other two factions march like they've got a mandate to impose their religiously derived moral codes on the rest of us.

Then there's a backlash.

And the gun grabbers get their power back.

Remember the contract with America? Remember how they promised to roll back Brady and the AWB?

I remember.

I notice that Brady is still law and I dare you to name a bill that repealed the AWB even if it didn't escape committee, because it damn sure never made the floor.

Christians, for goodness sake read your book! If abortion is murder, God has it covered and will be punishing the murderers. It's one of His jobs, He says so. You aren't supposed to force the sinners to be righteous, just to show them the way; they have to choose the path on their own. It's in The Book! Why is an atheist the one who knows that where you don't?

Also, the prohibition in the Bible about homosexuals reads far more like a prohibition on pederasty.

If they're POW they sit in a prison camp until the conflict is over. For as long as that may be regardless of how many elections we have and who wins them. Geneva and Hague agree and was reinforced after WW2 when we got huffy about the Soviets NOT releasing German POWs.

If they aren't POW then they are non-entity and can be disposed of as we will. You may notice that not a single German was at Nuremburg for what happened to partisans?

The traditional method is to summarily to shoot them. Other methods have been employed to cow the local populace, but killing them outright is acceptable.

Keeping indefinitely in a decent by American standards prison is far less than death, so it's got to be OK.

Torture is another matter, but that's got little to do with holding people who were captured under arms.

The leads for the thermostat heater being plugged into the blower box thermal fuse may be thus.

When the thermostats die, they take out the fuse.

The thermostat and thermostat heater are part of a variable heat system in my dryer. What the little heater does is trip the thermostat. It's just a bi-metal switch in there. What this does is cycle the heating element off and on giving allowing the temperature to be adjusted.

My theory is the thermostat croaked, and took the thermostat heater and fuse with it.

Previous owner bought a new thermostat, but not the heater. He had wires left over and plugged the heater leads into the dead fuse and when things still didn't work, twisted the ends of the fuse leads together. Function restored! All better!

Bypassing that fuse is a common repair I've seen now.

It's also possible that the fuse was bypassed first and the heater was omitted later and the leads were just parked where it was handy.

A while back I had a reason to think that my life specifically was in danger.

It turned out not to be true, but the reasoning was sound.

While the perception of the threat existed I put my Glock (unloaded) in a gun-rug and that went into my gaming bag.

While gaming at a friend's house I, being a good gun owner, let them know I had a gun and would leave if it bothered them.

They said it bothered them a bit, but it would be OK if we put the whole gun-rug in a cabinet behind the GM. Reasonably readily accessible if my fears turned out to be well founded.

We played our game, had a good time and while we were packing up to go home, I went to the cabinet to retrieve my pistol.

It was no longer there.

During a bathroom break my "friends" had hidden it further.

It was returned after asking, of course.

On the way out I said, "you will never be told I have a gun on me again."

They were genuinely confused.

"What would have happened if I'd needed it and it wasn't where YOU promised it would be?"

You lied. You betrayed my trust.

I stopped gaming with those people and eventually stopped being friends.

I got talked into gaming with them again later, but the GM made such a screeching deal about teh evols of assault weapons I offered him an experiment.

He agreed.

I took my Mini-14 with the folding stock, bayonet lug, flash-hider, pistol grip and 30 round magazine; attached the bayonet, chambered a round, put on the safety, popped open the bipod and set on the floor facing the basement wall.

The experiment was that the rifle would not shoot anyone as long as nobody touched it.

When I lived in Minnesota with my dad the high school had a biathlon team.

He constantly wanted me to get into sports, preferably football.

To be in sports in my school you had to try out for and successfully join TWO teams.

That's why was the hockey goalie.

Dad had mixed feelings about the sports I'd chosen, but his "son" had finally gotten into athletics. Never mind that I was taking karate and riding my bike twenty-five to thirty miles a day. I think he meant "team" sports.

There is no 'I' in 'Team' or 'Hockey', but there sure as fuck is in biathlon!

I'm a good shot. With the constant practice I became an excellent shot. I am not a great cross country skier, but my shooting almost made up for it. Almost.

But we had guns in our school. Locked cabinet in the locker room in the coaches office. I could even sign my rifle out for a weekend and take it home on the school bus, or slung on my back on my bike. And I did too!

Come monday, I'd take it back to school the same way.

Remember, I was a bullied loner gamer geek. I had a rifle, ammunition, anger and skills to hit a head at 50m after cross-country-skiing for a mile. Yet nobody ever died. Nobody even got aimed at. Heck, I never even visualized my bullies as my targets.

Why?

Grampa stressed the four rules when we were playing "war" with our toy guns.

The four rules were hammered home learning biathlon because we'd be spared five minutes of time trials skiing for each of the rules we could recite. If you've never skied like this, trust me; it's an incentive.

19 January 2013

These are found in places that are VERY Democrat, like New York City, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

They are merely the not-Democrat party candidates and not recognizable as a Republican in any other way.

Most RINO are not actually Democrats with an R, these guys are.

That they keep trying to recruit these guys to run for president says a lot about how messed up the RNC is.

Chris Christie is such a Democrat in Republican Clothes. Mitt Romney as well. Scott Brown... The list goes on.

I like watching Gov Christie go off on the unions in his state, but name something else about him that's remotely conservative. Go on. He is a creature of NJ and that means that he's totally alien to how people think in all of Flyover and most of The South.

Nothing makes the distinctions more clear than when the topic of firearms comes up.

New Jersey has an AWB. New Jersey has handgun registration police tracking of handgun sales. New Jersey requires a permit to purchase which is obtained in a process that is very similar to what most other states would call a shall issue carry permit, including the extensive background check.

And all that seems perfectly normal to Gov Christie.

Where he's anti-union but union goons working for the electric companies turned aside non-union linemen.

Where he's a budget fixer who demanded his share of the federal largesse with his arm around the President when his ill prepared state was found to be so. He at least wiped his mouth and dusted off his knees before getting on camera.

I want a pro-gun organization that lets me know what the heck is going on in terms more specific than "stuff."

You're asking for my money to fight "stuff"?

Specifics.

"The county you live in is violating your rights!"

Really? How about some specifics so I can take that to the county commission meeting and ask them about it. I'm not going to track it down and you've claimed discovery, how about you tell me what you discovered?

If we really do have a real conversation and do a full review of all the laws.

A small addendum I want to see added to the NFA.

Only firearms in their present form which violate the rules are grounds for violation.

Chuck the readily convertible. Chuck the requirement that we silver solder on flash-hiders.

Count something screwed onto the end of the barrel as part of the barrel because it's increasing the actual length.

If it doesn't go bang more than once per pull, then it doesn't matter that there's a hole drilled right above the selector. Or that there's a little tongue on the disconnector or a little hook on the hammer...

Or that there's a second sear on an FAL... (or a place to put it cut into the receiver.)

Let's talk about why licenses from the numerous states aren't given full faith and credit when talking about firearms.

Let's talk about how Federal laws trump local and state for everything but NFA items...

17 January 2013

Aimed shots take an extra second to line up and add the weapons Acc to the roll to hit, you are also making an All-Out Attack (Determined).

Let's assume that Mr Glittershine has an average DX of 10 and his mom had taught him enough to get a point in his Guns/TL8 (Rifle). That gives him a skill level of 10. The rifle he used has an Acc of 5. The ranges were all less than 7 yards (-3).

So, what does that do to our round count?

A real live 20" barrel M16 has a RoF of 13, so only these first 13 benefit from the aiming. The number of shots gives a +3. So, 10+5+3-3. 15 or less to hit. Rcl is 2 and an average roll is a 10 on three dice so... 3 rounds tend to hit, ten are wasted. If he holds down the trigger and keeps shooting he loses the Acc bonus for the next round and the chance to hit drops to 10... 1 round on average, wasting 12. If he keeps the trigger planted until the mag runs dry, a squip of 4 shots comes out the last turn with a chance of 7 to hit, which he will likely miss. So, aim for a second, 4 hits out of 30 in three seconds. 3 second reload. Seven seconds per magazine.

If he reaimed after each second's fire he dramatically increases the number of hits, every turn of firing becomes the same as the first turn described above. And a tactical reload to ditch the 4 rounds left in the mag after every second burst. Aim, shoot, aim, shoot, reload. Seven seconds per magazine.

I've heard that the active shooting went for 10 minutes and not the entire 20 minute police response time.

600 seconds.

Full auto, dump a mag at each victim; 2,571 rounds could have been fired. On average, 342 hits in that time. But this is also one mag per victim, so just 86 people would be injured. Assuming he schlepped 86 pounds of ammo to the school. Which I don't think he did.

Full auto, reaim; 2,571 rounds could have been fired. 514 hits on 172 victims!

Semi-auto with a 30 round mag. Skill 10, Acc 5, Range -3. 12 to hit. Two hits on average per turn of shooting. He liked hitting each target with at least three so lets assume two rounds of shooting per target. Semi-auto gets a follow-up of 1/2 Acc for a second turn at the same target without reaiming (+2 or 9 to hit for the second turn and we'll get generous and assume it hits).

Ten round magazine. Six at one victim, three at the next, reload; Aim at previous victim, fire... 8 seconds per magazine. Five hits and two victims per magazine. 750 shots fired, 375 hits, 150 victims. The timing of the reload is making him aim more often so he's getting more hits per victim.

Notice that 1/4 the ammunition in the magazine doesn't translate to 1/4 the number of victims or even 1/4 the number of shots fired?

None of this accounts for the time spent moving between victims.

Lets say half his time is spent moving. Notice we can still get double the actual number of victims with just a seven round magazine?

This is why we laugh our fool heads off at the anti-gunners when they propose magazine capacity limits.

Also remember that the rules of a roleplaying game segment the world into neat and discrete turns, the real world is far more fluid and faster.

Mr Glittershine reloaded far more than he needed to, I've read estimates that he left almost as much ammo on the ground as he fired. If he'd been limited to ten round mags he would have reloaded as often, just with a whole magazine instead of dumping a half-expended one each time.

Since it's a press release and we bloggers are the new press; here it is in its entirety.

Rubio Reiterates Support for 2nd Amendment Following President's Gun Policy AnnouncementWashington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) today issued the following statement reiterating his support for the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, in light of President Obama’s announcement regarding gun policy in America:“As the father of four young children, I was deeply saddened by the murder of innocent kids at Sandy Hook. In the aftermath of this terrible tragedy, I expressed my hope that President Obama and our elected leaders would take a sober look at how we can prevent such heinous murders in the future. Doing so would require addressing the underlying causes of these evil acts, and keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill without curtailing the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.“Nothing the President is proposing would have stopped the massacre at Sandy Hook. President Obama is targeting the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens instead of seriously addressing the real underlying causes of such violence. Rolling back responsible citizens’ rights is not the proper response to tragedies committed by criminals and the mentally ill. Making matters worse is that President Obama is again abusing his power by imposing his policies via executive fiat instead of allowing them to be debated in Congress. President Obama’s frustration with our republic and the way it works doesn’t give him license to ignore the Constitution.

“Guns are not the problem; criminals with evil in their hearts and mentally ill people prone to violence are. Rather than sweeping measures that make it harder for responsible, law-abiding citizens to purchase firearms, we should focus on the root causes of gun violence and keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.“As a strong defender of the 2nd Amendment, I will oppose the President’s attempts to undermine Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms.”

Mr Glittershine fired 150 rounds in 20 minutes from a semi-automatic rifle and killed 26 people and his cowardly subhuman self.

In GURPS terms the rate of fire for such a rifle is 3. You can fire faster than that, up to double that rate but you take some massive penalties.

I was just reading that it put at least three rounds into everyone killed.

78 out of 150 hits with slow deliberate fire. In 20 minutes. That's enough time to fire 3,600 rounds at 3 per second if you have a 3,600 round magazine. But he had 30 rounders.

Ten seconds to fire 30 rounds, 3 seconds to swap the mag if you don't have fast draw (magazine) or speedload skills. That three seconds between magazines changes our total 2,769 shots.

Eighteen and change times the number actually fired.

Let's limit him to ten round magazines. We'll even be an asshole GM and say the last shot of the mag takes a whole second long turn to fire. So, four seconds per mag, three to swap them... 1,714 rounds still more than ten times the shots fired.

How about five rounders?

Two seconds per mag, three to reload... 1,200 rounds. I'm sensing a diminishing return...

What about a bolt action hunting rifle with a five round magazine? Only one shot per second now. Three seconds per round to reload! Five seconds to empty the magazine and fifteen to replenish it.

300 rounds. Twice as many as were fired.

Fuck you gun banners.

Update:

Let's go all out here!

Single barrel shotgun.

One second to fire, three to reload.

STILL 300 ROUNDS!

Caplock rifle-musket?

One second to fire, fifteen to reload. 75 shots! Look Ma, we finally found a gun that shoots fewer rounds than were fired that day.

Update II:

What if he'd had a real live M16 or M4? Full auto, rock and roll?

RoF is 15 for an M4A1.

2 seconds per magazine, 3 to reload. 7,200 rounds. That's 240 pounds of ammo and mags, by the way.

14 January 2013

My dad owned a gun. My mother feared them and when they divorced, there were no guns in the house.

I did have toy guns in abundance and I played "guns" and "war" with my friends.

Playing war also gave start to my life long interest in military vehicles and equipment. I began to acquire books on the topic. Those books led to books about where the technology fit in historically then more books about more general history.

Those games gave way to table top role playing games such as Top Secret, Traveller and Twilight 2000.

Knowing about real guns could give you an edge in a game that used real guns, a few ounces off the encumbrance, a couple extra shots... Important stuff!

I fired my first real gun around 4th grade while we were visiting Iowa from Chicago and one my uncles decided to take his son and me out shooting. It was some kind of .22 semi-auto and we had a great time. Mostly making noise because I don't think I understood the sights.

Still, guns were NEAT!

I had friends here and there who owned guns, but the prohibition from Mom meant a bb gun was barely tolerated. I suppose I should clarify about her; she was not opposed to people owning guns, she was just afraid to be around them.

Those friends took me shooting and I learned a lot about the guns and how to shoot.

Then I joined the Army.

Gunnie heaven! In 1987 the Army was transitioning from the weapons of the late '60s into the weapons of the early '90's. I trained on both the M1 and M60A3 tanks. I learned both the M2HB and M85 .50 cal machineguns. I qualified with the M240 in the turret. We got "familiarized" with the M3A1 greasegun and M9 pistol. We qualified with the M16A1 and M1911A1.

Part of my Army adventure was an object lesson in just how thin the veneer of society was and the only way to insure your safety from being oppressed by an outside power was to be armed to the teeth. That lesson stuck.

The first gun I bought when I got out of the Army was a Ruger Mini-14, then a first gen Glock 17.

NOW, I was a member of the culture and was suddenly struck with the fact that there were people who were working to eradicate that culture from the nation. Then we got the AWB.

I couldn't figure it out. What the Brady Act and AWB actually did wasn't what the proponents of the bills said they addressed. Lies? Why would they lie? What was the real motive?

Remember that lesson that stuck? Remember how I collected military history books? It seemed a pattern was emerging and it wasn't a pretty one.

I remembered the long rambling rants of my great grandfather and how they had to flee Italy.

I see this pattern emerging again. Interestingly I see the same damned names attached to the new spate of laws as the last time. Will no one rid us of these meddlesome senators?

I remember "never again" and note that "again" is the culmination of the pattern.

I don't think of buying guns at department stores normally, like K-Mart and Sears, though they used to carry firearms.

I've always preferred to support the little local gun shop over the gigantic national chain where I could. Where I can't, I trend towards the internet places like Brownells and Midway.

Be honest, has Wal Mart carried a gun you wanted to buy recently or has their rack been mostly populated with the bottomest of bottom end guns? Did you notice that where it's not the entry level cheapo there's no price saving over the local shop too?

I hope they stand up to the government, but I don't expect their exiting the market to affect things much.

The local gun shop will be more than happy to pick up the slack and they generally offer better customer service as well.

The option to let the courts figure it out has been removed with the addition of indefinite internment.

That you are here means that there's no 2nd, 4th, 5th or 6th amendment protection.

But it's all about numbers.

Including the military there's about 4 million of you.

There's about 80 million of us.

20:1.

The mythical three percent is still 2.4 million. Just 1: 1.66667.

If just the threepers fight back they only have to take two of you with them to win completely.

There's another percentage I'd like to give you. 40%. That's when you become combat ineffective. When you've taken 1.6 million casualties you are out of the fight. The numbers are back to 1.5:1

We don't go combat ineffective because we're fighting against eradication.

What if more than 3% fight back? Parity is very likely once resistance to the arrests begin. With a 1:1 exchange we win.

It gets worse for you.

The numbers favor the defender. Better than parity is likely. Don't forget, nobody at Waco thought a massacre was even a possibility. Those were people who had stopped fighting. The first day is a better example of how it can go for you. 1.2:1 Not even good enough to win agains the threepers.

And we just need one out of every 20 arrests to result in a fatality to make no more of you and we win.

And that assumes you all join in the effort. That some (many?) of you aren't really part of us.

What happens if one of you is really one of us and pretends he's still one of you? What if he spies? What if that creates a situation where it's a lot better than parity for us?

It's all numbers and not many of us need to resist to win.

Still, WE don't want to die. There's still time. We need the thin lines to start talking back up their chains of command to explain the bloodbath that's likely to result from this. Especially tell your union leadership (if any).

13 January 2013

That's all the honorific you're going to get from me you ass kissing prick.

You are deluded.

I don't want to pay higher taxes because I think the money will be wasted. Not because I am racist.

Edit: I also don't want to pay higher taxes because far too many "citizens" in this country pay zero to negative taxes in addition to receiving subsidies.

But, please, keep punishing me like I am a racist. When the race war you and people like you are trying so hard to foment finally does start I will not have single pang of guilt about what will have to be done.

I am also young enough to know that has not been true for a very long time.

I remember hearing about the Glock 17 for the first time and my response was "cool!" not "heresy!"

Making the frame out of plastic seemed the logical progression. I'd read about how tool-steel and wood had been replaced with sheet metal and bakelite in World War 2 in some German guns and it seemed to me that as materials advanced so would they be used in firearms.

The M16 is missing a lot of steel compared to its contemporaries.

I find, though, I LIKE steel. I LIKE leather. I LIKE wood. I find I am willing to accept the penalty in weight that my liking brings. A 1911 with wood stocks in a leather holster just suits me better than a Glock in Kydex.

Not that I don't have a Glock. I like my Glock. I have a leather holster for it too (hee hee).

I am full on into advanced materials in my rifle choice. But I enjoy the old WW2 warhorses more.

The Glock 21 and two magazines is 4 lbs. An M1911A1 and two magazines is 3.8.

But I get 40 shots from the Glock and just 22 from the 1911. And it's the same ammo.

Yet I carry the 1911. It being much narrower makes it easier to conceal and that makes it more comfortable.

I eagerly await someone to finally make a 1911 form factor gun with fully modern design and materials.

One place that feudalism does us one better (at least for the landed non-commoner) is that someone is not bound by their parent's oath of fealty. They had to swear themselves before they were bound vassal.

We, on the other hand, are bound by the agreements our grandparents and parents made. Involuntarily ceding our sovereignty and liberties before we were born or when we were still children.

It seems akin to being chattel, like a serf.

I've read the documents detailing the debate preceding the passage and ratification of the US Constitution and this was not agreed.

At this point I doubt there will be a reconciliation between what is law and what the constitution says. If we get anywhere near it again, there will be literal rivers of blood and I doubt most seriously we shall attain the exception twice.

For some reason finding a black M7 with US embossing was moderately hard. There are perfect reproductions with USMC embossed on them, but hardly any with US. This one is a genuine issue item, thanks Ebay!

Genuine "Lift The Dot" Snap

Cathey Enterprises, North Carolina?

The nostalgia is so thick you can cut it with a knife here at the McThag ranch.

The latest is about Alan Williams bill to rebalkanize Florida's gun laws.

Hurray.

Why can't we just register that what has been going on in relation to the gun laws in Florida since the 1980's has been for the good and returning to those bad old days is nearly all cost and nearly no benefit.

Did I see the game last night? No, I didn't. You can stop with the play by play recap, I CHOSE to not see the game.

blink blink

Stop telling me about the game. I did not see it because I didn't want to and don't care one way or the other who won. The constant chatter about the sport du jour when I know that we have something in common to talk about pisses me off.

I don't watch:

Football (except for the Super Bowl and then only for the commercials which have been going downhill for a while)
Baseball
Hockey (despite playing in High School)
Basketball
Golf
THE ENTIRE OLYMPICS (even the shooting portion if it's even televised)

I just do not care about sports. I never really have and I never will.

I am a fan of motorsports but I don't go out of my way to watch it or plan around when it's scheduled.

I've decided to start talking about something that I know they don't care about but that I know down to minutiae. Like the graduation of airspeed indicators in WW2 fighter aircraft and is using knots superior to using miles per hour...

06 January 2013

I had two plus bricks hiding at the bottom of an ammo can, so we did get to go shooting.

I don't shoot much .22 because I only have the one gun. A Remington 341A.

Geraldine still shoots quite well. Not bad for someone born in 1938, huh?

25 yards, off hand, standing.

While there I was tempted by a Ruger Mk1 on consignment. Almost literally for a song. I sold a SIG to Marv for the funding. Because it's on consignment, the dealer has to wait two weeks for "pawn" clearance to end before it can be released to me. It's a real nice 1957 model and shoots pretty damn good. Even came with a spare magazine, which was marked $3.00 on the end of the original Ruger box. Talk about vintage!

All in all I'm pretty happy with how things worked out. The P232 was bought to be a daily carry gun that's been replaced by a P238. It's been languishing in the safe ever since. Marv likes that size .380 and really liked the 232 over his Bersa, so...

Horse trading is a blast and a major part of the enjoyment I get from both guns and cars as a hobby.

Paul Revere and the other dispatch riders that April morning were cogs in a communications machine that had 14,000 militiamen marching towards the Concord Road before the sun rose on April 19, 1775.
Six hours. 14,000 men.
I want you to think about that for a moment.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. How many people could we turn out, if we found out tonight at midnight, about a threat to liberty so dire that it must be met. How many people could you get to show up with you?
We all know the ‘get out the word’ advantages we have – iPhones, landline phones, payphones, laptops, netbooks, desktops, tablets, pagers, email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, the World Wide Web, radio and Youtube channels.
How many of you could get 10,000 to show up?
How many of you could get 1,000?
OK, let’s make it real easy. How many of you could get 100 to show up? How many of you could get 10?
How do you measure the value of liberty to a society?
Do you measure it by the number of people who are willing to show up to defend it?

I don't think I could get even one.

Most of the people I might ask to come would demand such incontrovertible proof that it was happening that we'd be done for before I could convince them.

It did not break from misuse or poor maintenance. It was not repaired or replaced with an equal knife.

I am very disappointed in the customer service displayed by Kershaw. The outcome is flavored by the three months of waiting for the first repair with no communications and then the nearly nine month wait to get a decision to cheap out on the replacement.

Marv's experience coupled with their apparent shift from American made goods to Chinese imports has really soured me on the company and I won't be buying a new Kershaw to replace my Cyclone when the day finally comes.

Got a reply. Could be the cylinder stop, could be the cylinder itself.

They said there's normally a ten month wait, but I could send it right in if I wanted to!

Shipping is retarded expensive thanks to ATF's regulations.

I hope they don't need to replace the cylinder.

When I got the gun the tip of the firing pin was broken off. I had a local smith replace the firing pin and I noticed the cylinder issue not too long after that. I wonder if he put something back together wrong. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't go straight to the range with it, but rather let it sit in the safe until the warranty on the work expired. A whole month!

86 years of history in one spot. All Colt, all in some form of .38 caliber. .380 ACP, .38 Special and .38 Super.

The defective Detective needs to head out to Cylinder and Slide or some similar place to be retimed. One of the chambers doesn't stop in battery during double action operation. It's the same chamber every time and it doesn't do it every single time. Single action is no problem.

02 January 2013

Deep down, he always wanted to be an interior decorator, but his father (the Smith) always expected him to become an adventurer.So he over-compensates by resorting to force at the slightest provocation.His adolescence was complicated by a secret relationship with the butcher's boy Bruce. The two always planned to run away together.To a happier place where they could decorate castles and run wild through the forest, and take long walks on the beach at sunset.But last year he and Bruce had a falling out. Over a girl, of all things.Since then he's become more withdrawn, darker. Decorating his rooms in brick red and gunmetal, rather than the gleaming steel and crimson of his youth.Bruce used to talk for hours about growing up to become a famous pastry and desert baker, a cake decorator extrordinare.Now Thack can hardly look at a cake without bursting into tears.Even the sight of a frosted bun or a bit of fondant causes him to unleash his defensive fury in a berserker rage, concealing his inner vulnerability by lashing out at anything and everything around him.His younger brother's 9th birthday was his last day at home. The party was... a disaster.The party was held in the family's side yard, it was a gorgeous spring afternoon, the yard gaily decorated with streamers.Thack went outside to wish his younger brother a happy birthday. He walked around the corner of the house, and then he saw it.The cake.In a flash, all his internal dams broke. The longing, the anguish; it all came flooding back. Thack lashed out in a blind rage, a red velvet haze.When he came to, surrounded by the shredded remains of the party, nothing remained of the cake save part of the uppermost layer, sliding indecorously down the shed.In the distance, he could still see some of the guests, fleeing for their lives.His tears tasted like frosting.

PS: This is one time I am thankful for being bounced all over the country by my dad hopping jobs. We lived in Bolingbrook, IL from 70-79; I could have ended up there and stuck with this shit directly instead of seeing it from afar as a warning to others.

Every aspect that was banned under the 1994-2004 federal assault weapon [sic] ban will be toxic come the next election should there be any compromise banning any of the named features in a future ban.

This is not negotiable.

Not bayonet lugs, not folding stocks, not telescoping stocks, not barrel shrouds, not pistol grips, not magazine capacity, not threaded muzzles, not flash-hiders, not shoulder things that go up!

Most especially magazine capacity.

If, in the name of compromise or bipartisanship you decide to go along with a ban on such we will have to abandon you as lost.

We will primary you to replace you with an unknown quantity. Failing that we will vote for a third party candidate.

Because the United States is a de-facto two party system, a large number of votes by gun owners for a third party is, in effect, handing the victory to the Democrats. The election after that, we hope you'll notice and put in someone who will vigorously repeal such onerous legislation.

We hope.

Yet we despair.

Far too many times has this pattern repeated.

We need you to stand your ground. We need you to say no further. We need you to realize that the justifications to pass such laws are empty promises and devoid of data supporting their efficacy.